The Unknown
by TheFreedomSock
Summary: All the characters in Slytherin are relatively unknown, we know almost nothing about them and what we do know is biased. This is a series of drabbles, vignettes and ficlets about the characters we know so little about, THE SLYTHERINS
1. Bella

Bellatrix Black had not always been mad.

Well, perhaps she considered so by her family and all those within "polite society", but to the rest of the world, she was perfectly sane. Perhaps she was considered reckless, shameless even, but still perfectly sane.

She was just going through a stage of teen rebellion. She was a girl with a spirit which would not be broken, she did as she wanted and she wanted to live. Bella Black smoked and drank and kissed whoever she fancied, she wasn't even all that concerned about bloody purity.

Bella was the kind of girl you went to when you wanted a good time, and she was always willing to oblige. She smuggled in muggle cigarettes and sipped whiskey from a china tea cup and was perfectly willing to do both while sat at the highest point of the tallest tree on the grounds at three o'clock in the morning.

Bella Black was so full of life; no one could ever rein her in. No one else in the world was so quick with a smile, so uproarious with a laugh. Her fellow pure-blood girls regarded her with scorn and concern, she was not behaving as a young lady should. But Bella didn't care, she tossed her unruly mane of thick back hair and threw back her head, life and happiness bursting from her.

She was the life and soul of every party, the joker and the one that made all the problems go away. So what if your parents where pressuring you to join an evil dictator, so what if you had just got Ts on every test you had ever sat, so what if you were becoming betrothed to your second cousin Siegfried , just have a drink, have a cigarette and laugh right up to the alter. Life could never be bad if you just laughed it all away.

There was no slow turn to the dark side, no dark presence creeping upon her. One day she was Bella Black, the next, she was... different.

No one ever found out entirely what had happened. All professor Slughorn had managed to discover was that Rosier, Avery and Lestrange had been in the common room late one night and a spell had gone wrong. Bella ended up in the hospital wing, when she woke a week later she had no memory of the incident and it was impossible to press charges.

Since the victim had no memory and those involved seemed either unwilling or unable to talk, the only two methods to proceed with were priore incantatum or veritaserum.

Unfortunately, all involved parties came for very old, influential families who refused outright to have their children's wands examined and even if they had permitted veritaserum, it was a rather grey area to pursue.

On the one hand, all the students were of age and had done something that was almost certainly illegal and definitely against the school rules. On the other, they were still only students and no one had a clue what they were actually looking for. There was no charm, hex, jinx or curse in existence capable of producing the effects demonstrated by whatever they had done, and since they didn't know what they wanted to ask, even requesting the use of the truth serum was beyond pointless.

Especially since the victim herself saw no problem.

This was not Bella Black; this was the woman soon to become Bellatrix Lestrange.  
This was not the laughing, fun loving girl who cared for nothing but living and laughing, this was the sadistic and cruel woman who was soon to become second in command to the most powerful dark wizard the world has ever seen, the murderer and torturer of nameless numbers of innocents, the woman who laughed as she inflicted the cruciatus.

This was not a woman anymore, this was a monster.

No one ever _officially_ found out what the spell was; all that was known was that a few weeks after the incident all those who had been involved had their memories expertly modified by their own wands, nothing but the actual incantation had been removed. There were only so many students in Slytherin who could've done that.

But that didn't change the fact that Bellatrix was now officially insane. This girl didn't throw back her head and laugh, her eyes twinkling with life and fun, this girl cackled and screeched with cruel, cold mirth. This girl started the Slytherin tradition of torturing younger students. This girl didn't climb the tallest tree on the grounds to laugh down at the world and have a drink but to declaim to the world that the Dark Lord was coming and that all those who were un-pure would be destroyed. This girl didn't make the headmaster chuckle at her ridiculous antics; this girl was the closest Dumbledore ever came to permitting Filch to do as he pleased.

In one year.

Imagine what she would do in the rest of her life.


	2. Death Eater's Children

A picture sits on many mantle pieces, eight teenagers sit together on the green grass of a school field, they smile and laugh at the camera and each other. If it weren't for the serpents on their robes, no one could know they weren't Gryffindors. They were just teenagers, what was the difference?

Pansy, Draco, Millicent, Theodore, Daphne, Vincent, Gregory, Blaise. If you wanted to work it out, you would see that they're not heartless. Three of them were marked. Draco, Theodore, Vincent. Did they want to be? Maybe they did. Did they have the option not to want to be? No they didn't. Death eater fathers branded their sons, and everyone died for them.

Vincent was killed last.  
Theodore was the first fallen.

Theo didn't stand a chance against the world. His father was elite, high in the circles around the Dark Lord. A powerful father, with only one son, one heir. His dark magic and iron will gave his son the mark even before Voldemort's wand.  
A seventeen year old, smart, but not that smart, was sent to war. Really, with only six years of magic, and none of it lethal, he didn't stand a chance. Even if he had been willing to kill.

Daphne didn't recover. No one expected her to. She didn't even make it to the funeral. Everyone tried their best for her, but only Theo's best would've been good enough for her. It was better that way, the way she died. He would've disagreed, he would've wanted her alive. But she had had a heart, she couldn't take her classmates mocking her over her love's death. None of those good little Gryffs even stopped to think that it had been them who killed Daphne, even if the knife had been in her hand.

Vincent's death was horrible. There are those who say he earned it, but he had less hope than Theodore. Theodore at least had had a brain. Vince didn't have a girlfriend, so who died for him? Have you ever said their names apart, Crabbe and Goyle, they were like one person. More like Crabbe&Goyle than one separate person. People pity George for losing his half; no one cared about Gregory for losing his, or wrote about what became of him. George had a support network for his rough times, Gregory had a hate network. It was the opposite thing to George so it produced the opposite result. George lived.

No one but the eight, the four now, knew why _they_ cared about the two. Outside eyes had seen a mindless lackey for the two, cruel and stupid. And they had been stupid, well, they certainly weren't smart. But Greg was funny and kind and sweet like no one else knew. And Vince told the best jokes, always made sure everyone else had the best time. They always did.

Gregory had had a girlfriend, but no one cared about either of them so Millicent was spared Daphne's torment. She was stronger than Daphne too, stronger than anyone. The three remaining were lost when they saw her cry. No one else would ever see it. They would see the heart rate monitor's little zigzag lines of her heartbeat slow and stop, settling to a long straight line as her large heart gave up. Internal injuries the report said, it didn't say where she got them. It didn't want to know.

Three were left. Draco and Pansy and Blaise.

Not for long.

Those three were the strongest, the most resilient. They already knew how to put up with being hated and trashed in every paper, by every mouth.

Blaise coped with a very long succession of one night stands. They kept his heart hard so that it would not soften and he could not hurt. He built up a successful business (that was never traced to him, no one would buy his products if it had been) and turned his mother's millions into billions.

Draco and Pansy coped together. Draco took over his father's interests and built them up, slowly and laboriously. Pansy was there for him, but it was hard. Draco had endured people whispering (and not always being so quiet) about his father, about how they were both evil bastards and cold hearted scum. Pansy hadn't. It hurt her, bit her, dug into her. She was falling apart and breaking Draco too.

No one ever found out what happened to her. One day, she just vanished. She left a note, it explained, apologised, begged to be forgiven, demanded to be forgotten, then ended.

Draco followed her instructions, but refused to forget. His hard heart became bulletproof. His business soared, he married something pretty and had a child. He watched that child leave home for school, thinking about his blonde hair. His child should have had dark hair, jet black hair and chocolate eyes. But both he and Astoria were blonde with blue eyes. There was no way Astoria's child would look like the only person he could love.

That night, Draco met up with Blaise for the first time in twelve years. After Pansy had vanished, he had cut away from everything. All her clothes burned, her contacts severed. But now he met with Blaise. "I've lived my life. I've done everything I need." He said to his only friend.  
"I've been waiting for you to say that for seventeen years." Came the reply.  
"What now?"  
"I don't know about you, but I rather miss Theodore."


	3. Why do you stay?

Draco lay next to her, his arm around her bare waist, staring silently up at the ceiling. She loved him, they both knew that. Neither of them said it or even acknowledged it, they just knew. Draco didn't love her, they knew that too. Draco couldn't love; she didn't even try to kid herself that he could. But if he could…

A part of Draco wished he could love her. She sometimes acted, she pretended to everyone that she didn't love him, that she was just earning her reputation as the Slytherin Slag with the Slytherin Sex God, they both knew it was more than that to her. Draco was almost glad it wasn't just that, he liked to spend his time with her, for some reason things were always better with her than they were with all the other girls. There was a spark to her kisses and something about the way she moaned his name made it sound more special. She knew him, better than anyone, and she accepted what she knew about him, even though she knew the worst of him, knew the depth of his hatred, the extent of his evil and his full capacity for cruelty. She didn't care.

She deserved better than this. Obviously not better than a Malfoy, there was no better really, but she deserved to love someone who was actually capable of the emotion and returned it to her. Someone she didn't have to hide away with.

When he thought about it he wondered why she stayed, what could he actually offer her? He had money, but she was Pansy Parkinson, she had money. He had power, but as the sole heir to the Parkinson estate, she really didn't need any more. And he couldn't give her power anyway. She couldn't manipulate him and even if we were married, the power would still be his. The only reason she stayed was that she loved him. Even though he still couldn't give it her back.

Some in their house thought that if you loved someone then you would have to leave them and instantly, but she knew better. If you stayed with them you could pretend to yourself and everyone else that it was just sex and snogging, that there were no emotions. But if you left them then it would hurt. You couldn't pretend to yourself because you would be able to feel the emotions hurting, there was no forgetting it. So she stayed, and Draco let her.


	4. Thestrals

The two Slytherins left the train with their usual smirks and sneers. Pansy, unlike the rest of their "friends" had waited for Draco after he had told them to leave without him to "attend to his business", and so she alone so far had shared with him the laughter and the hilarity that followed his victory over Potter.

They left the train, now empty, onto the platform, still filled with students, and hushed their laughter and swapped their smiles for smirks. No one but the two of them would see their reality. They strolled briskly (yes, strolling is supposed to be leisurely and slow, but they used that style of movement with speed with the effectiveness that only comes to those who are well practiced) along the platform towards the horseless carriages when suddenly, Pansy stopped.

Draco had gone a good few metres before realising this and, seeing her stood still, gazing at the front of the carriage with a slightly far-away look on her face, he sighed and turned back to her.

"What are you staring at?"

"Draco?" She asked quietly, "What do they look like?"

"The thestrals you mean?" He asked; his voice suddenly quieter, his tone a little more sombre. She nodded; her cold eyes now softer than they usually were in company.

"I don't know." She shook her head and turned to look at him, her face pensive and thoughtful.

"How can you not? You've killed enough." She wasn't saddened by this, merely deep in unusually philosophical thought.

"Yes," he whispered, "But once I've killed them, I never look back."


	5. Astronomy

I'm sorry if anyone finds this offensive but hey, if it's offensive then don't read it. Just as a note, I have never met or experienced anyone with thoughts like this so if this is wildly wrong and awful, then please either tell me something constructive or shush. Now read the story :)

* * *

"Don't bother." She didn't look around.

"It won't work." He said again.

She still didn't look round. She just looked down. It was a long way to the ground, not that she could see it. The night was thick and black, filling the air with impenetrable ink, hiding the ground a long way from view.

She felt drawn to this void, this endless pit that was too dark to have even begun. She took half a step forward. He didn't stop her. She took a deep breath, staring down into the black.

"It won't work."

She was annoyed now, she'd been ready. Slowly she turned, from her high position on the battlement for the first time she was taller than him. She liked it.

"Why won't it work? Because someone will stop me? Because my family or friends will be there to save me?"

"No."

She snorted with something that might've been laughter. It wasn't. Her eyes shone, not with tears, but with hatred. The mirthless hatred so strong it was almost humour, she almost found it funny. "Why, because you'll stop me?"

"No."

"Then why? Why the hell won't it work?" she demanded, furious at how resolutely he was sticking to being so unhelpful, so damn pessimistic. She laughed then; here she was, standing at the top of the Astronomy tower on the edge of the edge, accusing someone else of being pessimistic. Now that was funny.

He didn't ask why she laughed. He knew better than any that this situation made anything funny. Her laughter turned to anger when she turned back round to see him still standing there, still staring into the space a little past her, not looking at her but calmly and simply demanding that she couldn't.

"Damn it you little bastard why the fuck won't it work? Answer me damn it answer me!" She was screaming, nearly crying, hysterical. She stepped down from her high battlement to shake him by the shoulders. When he remained silent she lost her temper completely and hit him, her fist connecting with his jaw. Even in her state she felt scared.

She got no reaction.

He still didn't look at her, even his eyes remained calm, impassive, completely blank.

"Why?" she asked, in a desperate whisper. She needed it to work.

"It won't work." He said. He ignored the pain in his jaw, in truth, he barely felt it. He took off his jacket, put his wand down on a lower battlement and undid the buttons of his cuff then pulled up his sleeve to his elbow, eyes fixed on the darkness. He stepped up onto the higher battlement next to her, staring down at the blackness like she had been, but now she was staring at him. He was calm, relaxed almost, perfectly happy and more at peace than she had ever seen him.

Once he had stared his fill at the opaque air he smiled, almost. It was the only natural expression she had ever seen him wear. It was resigned, defeated, yet somehow free, wearily happy. He raised his eyes to the horizon, smiling a little more. It was beautiful, his milk white face was perfect, his smile so innocent, so simply happy; it radiated freedom and pure joy. Then he shut his eyes, his smile wider, his joy, his freedom catching the wind and taking flight, he spread out his arms behind him and teetered for just a moment on the edge.

He fell, face down, facing the ground, staring into the blackness through his closed eyes. She couldn't help herself, she gasped, let out a small shriek, screamed his name.

But he had no sooner vanished from her view into the black than he was rising, rising back up, arms still spread, eyes still shut. He looked like an angel, his face pale and beautiful, his arms spread like wings. He opened his eyes, for a moment they were even more beautiful, a silvery grey filled with the same exhilarated happiness as his face, then the moment was gone. The happiness on his face died and blanked again. He stepped down from the battlement and put his coat back on, putting his wand back in his pocket.

"See."

She stepped back up to the battlement; he did not try to stop her, just as he had promised. He took her hand even, helping her step up more easily.

"It's your magic. It won't let you. It knows you go down with no intention of going back up and it kicks in. It won't let you die, not that way. If you want to die you have to go much messier, that shows who really wants to die."

He pushed the images of those he had seen who _had_ really wanted to die, those who hadn't cared about dying peacefully or prettily or romantically or crap, those who had done whatever it took, and looked like it. He didn't shudder. Those people and their escape was part of him now. He had taken a mental note with each one, how they had done it. He had even tried to work out how long it had taken; how much pain they were in. It would come in useful one day, he was sure. Not yet.

"Why do you want to die?" She asked, staring at the dense emptiness below. He laughed.

"Why do I want to live?" He replied, staring at the dark horizon. She paused.

"Don't know."

"You don't know anything. Why do you want to die?" She ignored the insult, why did it matter?

"Same reason."

"No." His answer was sharper than before, harder. He was angry. "It's not the same reason, so I'll ask you again, why do _you_ want to die?"

"My family don't care, there are more where I came from. I don't have any friends, no real ones who care."

"And you think that's a reason?" he asked his voice was controlled, measured, almost blank as before. It wasn't quite. He was furious.

"Yes." She said, what other reasons were there?

"That's not your reason, that's mine. Your family do care. You can make new friends. Have a new future. Get over yourself." He spat at her. She stared at him, a little shocked at the venom in his voice. He still wasn't looking at her, still looking down from the horizon to the abyss where the ground ought to be. He hated her for daring to believe that she could no longer live in her life.

"If you've got nothing, why are you standing here then? Have you not thought of anything that works yet?"

"It's not finding a way to do it, it's finding it in yourself to do it. Trust me; I've seen enough ways to do it to know how." He didn't shudder. He had seen enough of his father's, ahem, associates, who had had enough. He knew exactly how to end it, the best way. He just wasn't ready. There was no way she could be ready.

"So the real question is, what are you doing here?"

She thought about it. She didn't know. Now he told her, it was obvious.

"I don't know."

"Yes you do."

"What is it then?"

"Something that sucks."

"Like what?"

"Something you don't want to be without."

She thought about it again.

"I want someone who loves me. Not because they have to, because I'm Me."

"Good idea. You should go work on that."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you're not leaving are you?" She wasn't really asking.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I want to be able to fall."

"Oh." She paused, unsure how to continue, but far from nervous. Hard to be scared of anything much when you've been just about to throw yourself off a tower. "Why? What is it you want? That you don't want to live without?"  
He paused.

"I want to have never been born. I'm not the first person to wish it."

"But if you weren't born then you wouldn't be here at all now."

A small smile.

"That's the point."

She gave it some thought, working out what was going on. She wasn't entirely sure why she was bothering, she hated him. But he had helped her. There was even less reason for him.

"Why now? You've had seventeen years to do this thinking, why now?"

"For the first eleven years I didn't know I was missing anything. Then I started to see other people, families who gave a shit. It started then. But now? I've seen everything I'll never have. And now there's nothing I can do to get it."

"There's always something."

"No." his voice blanked over, no emotion. So blank there had to be something underneath to hide. "I'm not free anymore." He let out a laugh, just one, cold, hard, mirthless. "To think I'm calling what I was before 'free'. But now I'm really not free. Nothing is mine anymore, not my body, not my mind." She didn't interrupt him, she was curious, she wanted to know where he was going, afraid he would stop at any moment. He did. He did not elaborate. She was too curious to just let it drop.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm his." No need to ask who.

"How?"

"Like this." He held out his arm to her, stretched out straight, palm facing upwards. She took his wrist and stared down at his forearm.

It didn't surprise her, no one would've been surprised, it was just a, shocking, thing to see. To see human flesh, of a boy so young, tainted, tarnished in such a way. _Branded like cattle_. She hated it, the way the grotesque symbol stood out so dark and overpowering against his pale skin, the way it showed who this person belonged to, grouping every single one of them under the same label, whether or not they deserved it.

These thoughts had never before occurred to her. She pushed them away for now, she'd think about them later.

"See. Branded, my body is his. My mind is his for his perusal, anytime he feels like it he'll have a look around and see what's new. Not only am I not free, no one I'm with is either." He watched her, but she made no attempt to leave, to step back off the battlement.

"So. Why do you want to fall?"

"I told you to get over yourself and fix it. I don't see how I can. I don't have family. I can't have friends. I don't know how to care and if I started I'd have to leave. I'm not safe you see. If He sees something he doesn't like, he might just fix it. My future is Him. No one else will employ me, go near me even. I'm _contaminated_." He spat the last word with hatred, venom, considering the irony that this was exactly how he treated others. Only with him it was true. _Contaminated_.

"What else do you want?"

He considered it.

"I want to be more like you." He laughed, a genuine one this time with a real almost smile. "No one ever thought they'd hear that did they?"

"What's so great about me?"

"You've got a future. People like you, people care. You're not contaminated, tainted, marked."

"What else you want that I have?"

"I want something you apparently haven't got, only I don't care why."

"Surely you've been loved by someone?"

"No. Why bother to love a sacrifice?"

"What?"

"My mother, I was a sacrifice, for the master. Why go to the bother of loving something you're sending to slaughter. It's a waste really, and you'll only get hurt. So she didn't, father wouldn't anyway, even if I wasn't meant to be His."

"Then find someone."

He extended his arm again, the mark painfully obvious.

"Well that won't stop everyone."

"Everyone who can love. No one who wears it is capable."

He was right. None of the Deatheaters could love. If they used to then they didn't anymore.

"So what are you going to do?"

He paused. He didn't need to consider it, he had had enough time to cover his options. "I'm going to stay here. When it's light I'll leave and pretend like it's fine. I'll come back tomorrow, and every night until I don't need to anymore."

She knew better than to be optimistic. "Don't need to?"

"Until I decided it's time to go."

Go. Interesting word choice. Could mean leave school, could mean just leave the tower. She didn't think so.

"Go?"

"I'm not ready yet. But I want to be. That's why I come here. I'm trying to get ready." He turned to her, emotion in his eyes for the first time. His eyes reached out to her, imploring her to understand. "I want to die. No, I want to _want_ to die. I don't yet, and I don't know why. Why do I want to live? I haven't got anything to live for."

"Nothing to lose, everything to gain." She said quietly. The corners of his lips twisted slightly.

"I wish." He knew he had no hope, no future, _nothing to gain. _

"It's true."

"What can I gain? I've got money, power, looks, girls, it's all nothing. I've got it all."

"What about everything else?"

"I can't get love. If I knew what it was I would run from it at top speed, it's not safe for anyone. Especially not me, not anyone who's _contaminated_."

"Stop it." She said suddenly, cold but angry.

"Stop what."

"Saying that, saying contaminated. It doesn't help."

"But to the contrary, you and your lovely little friends have spent six years saying I need to be taken down a peg; now I'm doing it myself, and my it tastes sweet." He gave a twisted little smile to the horizon.

"If you jump so do I." She said, noticing him edging closer to the edge.

"Funny thing about the human brain," he said, ignoring her completely, "If you live your life in perfect safety, thus increasing the likelihood of you staying alive, you feel less alive than someone who tries to kill themselves. Funny how things work out," he nearly laughed.

"I mean it."

"I know you do, but all you'll achieve is adrenaline, there's no point."

"Then step away from the edge."

"No."

"Why?"

"I like to pretend that it would work. And I like how it looks down there. It's black, and empty, and nothing. Thick with nothing. It's Death. It's... enticing, is it not."

She peered over the edge.

"Yes. It is isn't it. Enticing, and somehow charismatic too. I like it."

A smile twisted his lips.

"Of course you like it. Everyone likes it, they're just too scared to admit it. But they're the smart ones, they're the ones who'll stay away."

He looked over at her. "I'll see you tomorrow night Weasley."

"You will Malfoy?"

"Yes. I will. You like it here, the blackness. It's more than enticing, it's addictive. You'll keep coming back. Until you stop."

"And when will that be?"

"When I stop."

She didn't need to ask when or why he'd stop.

Dawn broke the skyline, the first light. She'd be missed.

She turned away, throwing a glance over her shoulder to him. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye." He didn't turn away.

She left. He would too, soon. And although everything was different, nothing would change.


End file.
